This week:
- A handy fall what-to-watch guide.
- A little note about Diane Keaton.
- A love letter to a Broadway show.
- A Wicked guessing game.
- A word of thanks for Gwyneth Paltrow.
Here’s What I’m Loving Right Now
It’s leaf peeping season! It’s sweater weather! It’s “please don’t try to make plans with me and make me feel guilty for burrowing in the corner of my couch with a cozy blanket for 13 hours a day” time!
The glut of fall TV shows is here, and there are a bunch that I’m really digging—both of the prestige TV and the please-don’t-judge-me-for-watching this variety.
Task
Last Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Task is, in my opinion, the best episode of TV this year. It begins with an intense, stressful 20-minute shootout, with the emotional aftermath unfolding—and devastating—throughout the rest of the hour. I’ve seen this weekend’s finale, and I’ll just say that it sticks the landing, and Mark Ruffalo should start writing his Emmy speech.
Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy
I hate the trend of serial killer TV series. They are resoundingly distasteful, at best, and downright offensive at worst. Peacock’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy is a refreshing antidote to all of that, a series that centers the victims and the tragedy rather than fetishizing sociopathic criminals.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City
If there is a hill to die on, it is that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the greatest gift Bravo has given to society—and you will find my corpse at the top of it. Every episode of the season so far has been a chef’s kiss, to the point that the chef has taken out a restraining order against me.
This reference? Top tier. #RHOSLC pic.twitter.com/FqnrhLBMZC
— Gibson Johns (@gibsonoma) October 15, 2025
Ghosts
There’s something about CBS’ long-running comedy Ghosts that just feels like fall—and not just because its characters evoke the stars of spooky season. The humor and the heart, not to mention its familiarity now in its fifth season, is just the right amount of cozy.
Dancing With the Stars
Am I just old now, or is Dancing With the Stars, like, cool again? This season’s cast of rando celebrity-ish contestants is really fun, and the performances have been legitimately great, to the point that I’ve seen them going viral online. During this week’s episode—I’m not kidding—I…wept?
Matlock
I’m at the point of running up to strangers on the street and shaking them by the shoulders while screaming in their faces, “Do you know how good Matlock is?!” The first season of the CBS reboot/remix was so clever, anchored by a gripping “how long will she get away with this?” storyline and a career-capping triumphant Kathy Bates performance. Season 2 just started, and it’s already delivering the goods.
The Lowdown
Ethan Hawke is having the year of his career, between his Oscar-tipped performance in Blue Moon, his turn in this weekend’s Black Phone 2, and his incredibly fun turn on FX’s The Lowdown. It’s a wild ride of a show, one that I’m happy to have buckled in for.
Well, La Di Da, La Di Da, La La
A week spent revisiting Diane Keaton’s life, work, and irresistible joie de vivre has been profound and poignant; the reason for it is devastating, but the experience of it could not be more fulfilling.
You spend a lifetime watching movies and you sometimes don’t understand why there are certain people that seem to have a special spotlight put on them seemingly just for you, as if some higher cinematic being is trying to tell you, “Hey, watch this one! This one is going to matter to you! This one is going to make you feel something!” You start to, for lack of a better word, “get” yourself, because you recognize something in what you’re watching—and who—on screen.
For so many people, that was Diane Keaton. Her mesmerizing, culture-shifting turn in Annie Hall was like watching sparks fly from a wire on the fritz—uncontrolled in a way that could be unsettling, but absolutely electrifying. (One of my favorite social media posts after Keaton’s death was that everyone gets one free pass to revisit a Woody Allen movie in her honor.)
She was never, in any of her work, just kooky, something that was entirely validating. Quirky people have depth, too. They feel deeply. They have pain and they have empathy, in just as much resource as they have their endearing goofiness.
I loved Diane Keaton characters—and I loved watching Diane Keaton interviews—because they and she were a reminder that the oddball can and should be beloved. A person just has to allow themselves to love, welcome that love in, and give that love back in equal measure. That’s what Diane Keaton meant to me.
One of the Best Musicals I’ve Seen
I got goosebumps so many times while watching the new Broadway revival of Ragtime that cartographers are updating New York City maps to account for the mountain range that just rose up inside the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.
It’s a show that musical theater fans adore for its absolute bangers that make up its score, which, when arranged as sumptuously as they are in this production and sung with as much gusto as fervor, can be moving to the point of actually overwhelming.
The numbers—“Wheels of a Dream,” “Till We Reach That Day,” “Back to Before,” “Make Them Hear You,” and the title number, among so many others—are performed so exquisitely in this production that people familiar will the show will likely start to feel the warm sensation bubbling up into tears at the opening notes to particular songs, just at the sheer anticipation of what’s to come.
Broadway is so expensive, not to mention the cost of getting to New York to watch productions if you don’t live there. But if you’re able to do it, this version of Ragtime is a must-see.
The Year’s Most Anticipated Stunt Casting
Wicked: For Good director Jon M. Chu teased that a major actor voices the Cowardly Lion in the upcoming sequel, and that, when the celebrity is revealed on the premiere’s red carpet, “It’ll be wild.”
‘Wicked: For Good’ director Jon M. Chu teases surprise voice actor for the Cowardly Lion to @Deadline:“Man, wait until the red carpet when the actor who gave us the Cowardly Lion’s voice steps foot on it. It’ll be wild.” pic.twitter.com/Y7hXGzT9AG
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 16, 2025
Speculation has run rampant on who it might be. Someone with an instantly familiar voice, like a Morgan Freeman or a Hugh Grant, or perhaps, gender blind, Tilda Swinton or Emma Thompson? An icon with connection to Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, like Liza Minnelli, or Joel Grey from the original Broadway cast? Or will we be terrorized with the usual go-to for stunts like this: James Corden?
Personally, I say go outside the box. If that lion doesn’t open its mouth and either Miss Piggy or Fran Drescher’s voice come out of it, I’m leaving the theater.
This Is Forever a Gwyneth Paltrow Fan Club
If you’re not obsessed with this anecdote Gwyneth Paltrow told about meeting Marty Supreme co-star Timothée Chalamet for the first time, we can’t be friends:
“I first met him at the costume test. I was asking him questions, trying to get to know him. Everyone makes fun of me because I don’t know anything. I was like, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ And he was like, ‘I do.’ He mentioned that she had kids and I was like, ‘That’s so cool. I really love to hear that [from] a young man like you.’ It’s a cool choice to go out with a young woman who has two kids. I respect it. I think it’s kind of punk rock. But my point is I didn’t know [it was] Kylie Jenner…”
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
How Severance star Michael Chernus got inside the mind of John Wayne Gacy. Read more.
Ethan Hawke tells Obsessed all about his award-worthy performance in Blue Moon. Read more.
Director Colin Hanks breaks down the heartbreaking revelations from his new documentary John Candy: I Like Me. Read more.
What to Watch This Week
Black Phone 2: Just the press images for this movie creeped the hell out of me. (Now in theaters)
Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy: A rare serial-killer series endorsement from me. (Now on Peacock)
Mr. Scorsese: A fittingly epic docuseries about one of cinemas GOATs. (Now on Apple TV+)
What to Skip This Week
The Astronaut: Sometimes the astronaut should just stay out in space. (Now in theaters)
The Road: Imagine watching a reality competition starring Keith Urban in this climate! #TeamNicole! (Mon. on CBS/Paramount+)
The post The Best TV Shows to Watch This Fall appeared first on The Daily Beast.
